Need Visuals?

There's An Icon For That!

FLATICON

@LisaBerghoff

 There has been quite a bit of research about the benefits of visuals on teaching and learning. Our brains really connect to visual stimuli and that can also help with memory and recall. Sometimes I find myself spending way too much time exploring visuals to use with my students. I do Google image searches, I have even tried some of the text to image generators in the search for the perfect image to go with my content. In reality, the perfect image is not what will help students learn and retain information. Often, all that is needed is a simple icon. An icon is a simplified picture that represents a concept or an object. Even though it is simple, it can have a big impact on students. Think about all of the icons that we now know for our Google tools, commonly used websites, or our own HP logo. When we see those, we know exactly what they mean.

There are times when it may seem like an icon does not exist for the topic at hand. What does an icon for collaboration look like? What about analysis? Or historical? The thought of making my own icons for peer mentoring feels daunting. 

Flaticon is a website that allows you to search and find icons, stickers, animated icons, and interface icons. You can filter by color and shape and you can sort by time or by trending. These are designed for you to use digitally but you could certainly incorporate them on print material. 

Sometimes you just need a digital sticker of a happy chicken.

Chicken stickers created by stickerfolio - Flaticon

The icons are free for you to download as a png and use as long as you give the proper author attribution. The premium version, which is listed at $8.25 per month allows for unlimited downloads and no attribution needed. They also have some icon packs that were created by third parties and attribution is not needed for those even with the free version.

Idea animated icons created by Freepik - Flaticon

Think about it, we often organize material by color, why not add an icon to help spur your students' memory? Using icons can be a wonderful way to categorize materials by type, or topic, or learning standard. There are also icon "packs" that go together. These are fantastic for presentations or website design. The packs definitely cut down on the search time.

What if you had your students choose the icons? This would be less time intensive than having them create icons, though they certainly could. The process of your students looking on Flaticon and then searching for the one that resonates with them could be a fantastic step towards providing student voice and choice in a very non-threatening way. You can ask students to help with branding the class content! This would be an interesting activity. The students would need to distill the content area down into one or two keywords and then choose the icon that fits most appropriately.

You won't need them but here are instructions.

1. Go to Flaticon.com

2. Click log in and use your school Google account

3. Choose the type you want: icon, sticker, animated icon, interface icon

4. Type your keyword or words into the search bar

5. Click on the icon you want, choose download for free, copy the attribution link

How will you use icons in your classes? I can't wait to hear! 

Want some help getting started? I'm always happy to offer assistance.